11/19/2010

A Memory Book for a 60th Birthday: Part 8

Ah...Martha's Vineyard Summers...

When I scrapbooked photos of my friend Jaime's legendary beach parties for her Memory Book, I wanted to capture the essence of life by the ocean. We are immensely lucky to live only moments from beautiful beaches and we take every opportunity we can to gather on them. I had some great paper that had photographic images of a Cape Cod-style sandy beach with weathered fencing that was perfect for the occasion. (When I stiched the pages of my double-page layout together in photoshop, I somehow got the intensity of the colors wrong and the color of the sand and sky don't match up here as well as they do in the actual layout.) I love the "Life's a Beach" sticker placed on the bottom of the layout -it actually has real sand and tiny shells attached to it, and adds a great touch.

Another challenge was to tell the story of 30 years of fabulous dress-up parties in just two scrapbook pages. I found a really cool-looking journaling block that was the perfect tool for anchoring the page. I listed all the titles of the crazy dress-up parties we attended through the years and then arranged the photos as if they had been randomly dropped across the two pages. I used a dark floral printed paper thatdid not distract the eye from the photos as a background. This "random" arrangement, together with clever cropping, enabled me to fit 18 photos on my layout! Here's a close-up of the journaling block:

Jaime's scrapbook also included layouts devoted to her family, her catering company, her passion for sailing, and some humorous party shots that are too personal for public posting. One of my favorite layouts is devoted to the men in her life, past and present. But perhaps my favorite page is the final one, in which a very young and very tanned Jaime leans on a balcony railing looking off in the distance as if looking ahead into the future:

I adhered a gorgeous die-cut paper from Webster's Pages to a black background with the beautiful photo of Jaime front and center. I added a simple title: "Celebrate Life" and a couple of silk flowers which completed the story of Jaime perfectly, and offered a fitting closing page to her Memory Book.

On that note, I will end my 8-part series on "A Memory Book for a 60th Birthday". I hope you have found some inspiration and perhaps a little joy in these pages. I will close with a photo of Jaime's birthday cake -an amazing Gingerbread Cake baked by Martha, who appears in an earlier post about Jaime's TGIF girlfriends. The tradition in our circle is that everyone present is invited to place a ring on one of the birthday-girl's lit candles while making a wish, and as the candles are blown out, all the girlfriends' wishes will also come true.

Incidentally, the recipe for this truely delicious ginger cake may be found in Susan Branches 2011 Calendar available through her website and in stores now...a great Holiday gift idea!

Comments

A Memory Book for a 60th Birthday: Part 8

Ah...Martha's Vineyard Summers...

When I scrapbooked photos of my friend Jaime's legendary beach parties for her Memory Book, I wanted to capture the essence of life by the ocean. We are immensely lucky to live only moments from beautiful beaches and we take every opportunity we can to gather on them. I had some great paper that had photographic images of a Cape Cod-style sandy beach with weathered fencing that was perfect for the occasion. (When I stiched the pages of my double-page layout together in photoshop, I somehow got the intensity of the colors wrong and the color of the sand and sky don't match up here as well as they do in the actual layout.) I love the "Life's a Beach" sticker placed on the bottom of the layout -it actually has real sand and tiny shells attached to it, and adds a great touch.

Another challenge was to tell the story of 30 years of fabulous dress-up parties in just two scrapbook pages. I found a really cool-looking journaling block that was the perfect tool for anchoring the page. I listed all the titles of the crazy dress-up parties we attended through the years and then arranged the photos as if they had been randomly dropped across the two pages. I used a dark floral printed paper thatdid not distract the eye from the photos as a background. This "random" arrangement, together with clever cropping, enabled me to fit 18 photos on my layout! Here's a close-up of the journaling block:

Jaime's scrapbook also included layouts devoted to her family, her catering company, her passion for sailing, and some humorous party shots that are too personal for public posting. One of my favorite layouts is devoted to the men in her life, past and present. But perhaps my favorite page is the final one, in which a very young and very tanned Jaime leans on a balcony railing looking off in the distance as if looking ahead into the future:

I adhered a gorgeous die-cut paper from Webster's Pages to a black background with the beautiful photo of Jaime front and center. I added a simple title: "Celebrate Life" and a couple of silk flowers which completed the story of Jaime perfectly, and offered a fitting closing page to her Memory Book.

On that note, I will end my 8-part series on "A Memory Book for a 60th Birthday". I hope you have found some inspiration and perhaps a little joy in these pages. I will close with a photo of Jaime's birthday cake -an amazing Gingerbread Cake baked by Martha, who appears in an earlier post about Jaime's TGIF girlfriends. The tradition in our circle is that everyone present is invited to place a ring on one of the birthday-girl's lit candles while making a wish, and as the candles are blown out, all the girlfriends' wishes will also come true.

Incidentally, the recipe for this truely delicious ginger cake may be found in Susan Branches 2011 Calendar available through her website and in stores now...a great Holiday gift idea!